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Remember
the old hag from Cauldron? In those days she
was quite a nice old dear, not like the horrible, bloated
Pumpking who ruled the woods. He wasn't very nice. In
fact he was down right evil. So evil that he used to
put cute little kittens in pickle jars end drop them
from high buildings. So evil that he once deprived all
the rabbits in the wood of their buck-hood just to pass
the time. But Witchy-Poo managed to put an end to such
wicked cavortings -- she gathered six ingredients, made
a spell to distract the Pumpking and while he was preoccupied
she stole his Golden Broomstick. With the power of the
broom she banished the porky vegetable and all his minions,
forever.
Well,
not quite, since there was a survivor -- a little pumpkin
who guarded the Pumpking prior to his demise. But this
friendly little fellow wasn't horrible and evil -- well,
not much, he just had a rotten childhood, got in with
the wrong people and was misunderstood by his social
worker. Anyway, once the fatty Pumpking had gone, the
small pumpkin soon changed and showed everyone what
a nice chap he really was by helping lots of grannies
across the road, and made people happy by recovering
their stolen £5 notes -- that sort of thing.
Inside
the Witch's bedroom, a veritable den of
iniquity no less (well what do you expect with a
Wicked Witch and her Wicked Ways)? However,
what she's doing here is harmlessly getting her
beauty sleep -- boy does she need it.
Unfortunately
though, the power generated by the Golden Broomstick
perverted the goodliness of the Witch and she became
warped and evil. She ordered all the little creatures
of the forest -- you know, the cuddly ones with big
dewy eyes that Walt Disney made famous -- to build her
a huge castle in place of her dilapidated old cottage.
She invited a horrible entourage of creatures to move
in with her, and nobody dared go near the joint. The
Witch's domination was now supreme.
Until
one fine sunny day in late April, the little pumpkin
learned of the Witch's whereabouts. 'Ha! She doesn't
scare me,' he squeaked at the top of his little pumpkin
voice, and he decided there and then to put an end to
the oppression, and show everybody what a jolly nice
pumpkin he really was. So, off to the Witch's castle
he sproinged. Sproing, sproing, sproing.
The
Hag's abode is a large castle consisting of 128 rooms,
all filled with horrible things out to do damage to
our edible hero. The game is viewed and played in flip
screen fashion as the pumpkin moves from one location
to another. The pumpkin has a novel method of locomotion
-- he bounces! He can perform three different heights
of bounce: little sproingy ones, middle size boings
and huge great seven league spadoings. Normally he sproings
though, but pressing the fire button causes him first
to boing then spadoing, useful for negotiating some
of the chasms and nasties around the castle.
The
castle's decor is pretty questionable -- but then what
do you expect with such a vile and evil despot ruling
it? -- and there are several pieces of furniture and
masonry to negotiate. There are also plenty of nasties
to avoid, or shoot, such as goose-stepping skeletons,
hunchbacks with large clubs, floating spikey balls,
hammers, mice, knives, spiders and grasping hands. If
any of these creatures hits our effervescent friend,
he loses energy (shown as 'magic' at the top of the
screen), but touching a spider or skeleton kills him
outright, and touching a hand reverses the joystick
controls for a few seconds. With each loss of life the
Witch cackles mercilessly. Also worth avoiding are the
ends of spears, axes and lit candles, as touching them
results in the loss of a life and even more merriment
for the Witch.
Fortunately
there are energy spots scattered about the castle, and
these restore the pumpkin's energy when collected. They
also give the heroic veggie the ability to fire bursts
of energy at the marauding baddies, but at the expense
of deploring his magic by one unit. Adorning the exterior
of the castle are Gargoyles (not the ones who write
games in Dudley), holding stone platters. If the little
fella bounces onto a tray to collect an object and doesn't
bounce back quickly enough, the gargoyle tips him off
and he plummets to the forest below. Fortunately it
doesn't cost him a life, just some energy.
The
game starts at one of four locations, but no matter
where the pumpkin starts, he can only complete his task
by collecting seven different objects. Dotted around
the castle are six items: a book of spells, a goblet,
a crown, an axe, a shield and a pair of scissors. These
give respectively the ability to complete the game,
immunity from the marauding hands, immunity from the
nasty guarding the Witch, the ability to open doors,
defence against skeletons and finally the ability to
cut the Witch's hair. When all of these things are in
the pumpkin's possession, along with the lock of Witch's
hair, he can go down to the bowels of the castle and
dump everything in the cauldron found there. Doing so
will break her evil spell and everyone can live happily
ever after -- how nice.
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